TURKEY JUMPING UP THE EUROPEAN POPULARITY LEAGUE

The days of British holiday makers packing their bags in search of summer sun in Spain and France are somewhat dwindling. Europe’s other major group of big spending holidaymakers, the Germans, are similarly showing up less frequently at the standard resorts. These two nations now tend to spread their wings further afield and exotic destinations such as Turkey are becoming more popular than the Costa del Sol ever was. The European region of Turkey attracts more people than the Asian part; the simple explanation being that it is nearer. The WTO (World Travel Organisation) has stated that Turkey is now among the most popular places in the world for tourism. Other extremely popular European destinations include Greece, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland. The first three draw tourists to the beaches, the latter to the Alps.

Turkey’s rise in the field of tourism surprises many within the tourism industry. Indeed, the country still lacks a number of elements which the world super powers of tourism have in abundance. For instance the Turkish roads are relatively poor, meaning that road tourists tend to go elsewhere. Furthermore, Turkey is not the easiest place to get to by air. Whereas most European countries have a plethora of airports, for Turkey’s size, the amount is rather low. There is a lack of infrastructure and the amount of decent hotel rooms even in the major cities is distinctly low. Further areas of potential improvement involve Turkish domestic tourism, as few Turks actually travel within Turkey on holiday, and promoting areas away from the Aegean and the Mediterranean. At the moment, these can be described as the only areas of Turkey foreigners know about.

These negative aspects actually suggest that the future of Turkish tourism is bright. 500 million people visited this country last year, spending $18.5 billion in the process. Once the above-mentioned areas for improvement have been sorted out, the sky is the limit for Turkish tourism.